High level overview of how The Research Locker uses Customer Journey Mapping to measure current 'as is' customer experience as well as aspirational state. Included Customer / Company Effort and Emotion metrics as well as customer interactions points. Helps companies understand where customer Pain Points and Opportunities for Improvement exist.

1. SUMMARY CONTACT
CUSTOMER
JOURNEY
MAPPING
WE USE CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPS
TO VISUALISE AND HELP CLIENTS
UNDERSTAND THE CUSTOMER
COMPLAINT EXPERIENCE.
THE RESEARCH LOCKER
CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPPING
APRIL 2017
PHONE: 0800 0461 759
SCOTT@THERESEARCHLOCKER.COM
WWW.THERESEARCHLOCKER.COM

2. CUSTOMER
JOURNEY MAPS
INTRODUCING CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPS
“This is Service Design Thinking” [1] describes Customer Journey Mapping as providing “a vivid
but structured visualisation of a service user’s experience. The touchpoints where users
interact with the service are often used in order to construct a “journey” – an engaging story
based upon their experience. This story details their service interactions and accompanying
emotions in a highly accessible manner.”
At The Research Locker, we use Customer Journey Maps to visualise and help clients understand
the customer complaint experience. In doing so, we identify critical touchpoints within the
customer journey, e.g. where too much effort was required on the customer’s part.
• Where customer ‘pain points’ exist within the complaint journey
• Where opportunities might lie to reduce Customer Effort and address such ‘pain
points’, helping to improve the customer experience
• How processes and procedures can be re-designed to make future customer
journeys more effortless and, thus, engender loyalty within complainants
As well as measuring Rational and Emotional elements within the ‘as is’ customer complaint
journey, we also capture the Emotion experienced and Effort exerted at each interaction and
how this influences the intentional future behaviours of the customer, e.g. likelihood to remain,
buy additional products, recommend to family & friends, etc.
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3. STEP 1
We use research to capture what the current customer journey looks like.
• Constructing a customer journey map involves defining the various interactions
which take place between the customer and your organisation by generating
complainant insights.
• Once touchpoints / interactions have been identified, they can be connected together
in a visual representation of the end-to-end customer experience during a complaint
resolution period.
• We use both qualitative & quantitative research methodologies to map the current
customer journey from the customer perspective, identifying critical touchpoints
where customer expectations are not being met as well as opportunities for
improvement.
• Creating customer journey maps to reflect actual customer segments are a great
way to create empathy with complainants within your business. We can also create
segment personas if they don’t already exist within your organisation.
• We would also advocate overlaying the customer journey with your internal process
map(s) so as to understand how well customer expectations and organisation
capability align and compliment one another.
• Our objective at this stage is to provide client organisations with a fresh, up-to-date
view of the customer complaint experience and highlight where customer ‘pain
points’ exist.
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OUR APPROACH

4. STEP 2
SUMMARY
We help you re-design the customer journey to create a new, aspirational map
• Because the quantitative research ‘data’ has already helped establish where
customer ‘pain points’ lie and what drives them, we can now work with you to ideate
what a better journey might look like in more detail – through collating and analysing
customer verbatim of where service interactions fell down and what customers
suggest could be done to improve
• We understand how customers can see ‘unnecessary’ obstacles in their path when
it comes to raising and resolving complaints, so we help you conceptualise how to
remove such impediments and, as a result, reduce customer effort.
• Our objective at this stage is to help clients understand and create a target state
for the customer complaint journey, i.e. a ‘vision’ for your organisation to work
towards, enhancing the customer experience and improving customer loyalty along
the way.
The Research Locker believes Customer Journey Maps are a critical tool for organisations
looking to manage and improve their complaint handling performance and deliver a positive
customer experience – they visualise the end-to-end complaint journey from the customer
perspective, identify what currently works well and what touchpoints or interactions might
benefit from improvement.
We also believe that relying on assumptions or ‘gut instinct’ is not always a reliable measure
when it comes to understanding the customer experience during a complaint resolution period
– that’s why we advocate the use of research to not only map the customer experience and
highlight opportunities for improvement, but also as an opportunity to test internal hypotheses
and ensure any improvement investment is deployed in the correct area so as to achieve
maximum impact.
[1] “This is Service Design Thinking”, Marc Stickdorn & Jason Schneider, BIS Publishers, 2012.
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OUR APPROACH